In order to provide a vehicle with excellent styling and aesthetic appeal, it is necessary to provide a painted vehicle surface which is free of dents or nicks. As a result, car manufacturers attempt to pinpoint dents on a surface before painting the vehicle. Based on the size of the dents, the manufacturer decides whether the surface dent is small enough to be covered during painting (e.g., painting using electrocoating or electroplating), or whether the surface needs to be repaired prior to painting. Because there is no effective system or device for measuring the depth of smaller dents (e.g., dents 0.1 mm deep or less), the determination of whether repair is needed essentially constitutes guesswork from the inspectors. Due to this guesswork, there have been instances where the small dents were large enough so that they were not covered during the painting step, a situation not as aesthetically pleasing and/or can lead to quality issues with the paint. Accordingly, there is a need from improved depth gauges operable to detect small dents on a surface, as well as methods of using the depth gauges to eliminate the guesswork in deciding whether to repair a surface prior to painting.